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Macjams is an independent garageband news site. Among many links is this one to 40 megs of free loops produced by Bitshift Audio.
- jim 1-28-2004 9:55 pm [link] [add a comment]

Obviously any email you get saying "The message contains Unicode characters and has been sent as a binary attachment" or "The message cannot be represented in 7-bit ASCII encoding and has been sent as a binary attachment" or anything else specifying the need for you to open a binary attachment IS SPAM. Especially if you are at risk (running windows) please do not open. This is a bad one.
- jim 1-27-2004 6:38 pm [link] [12 comments]

20 years ago today:

CUPERTINO, Calif., January 24, 1984--Apple Computer today unveiled its much-anticipated Macintosh computer, a sophisticated, affordably priced personal computer designed for business people, professionals and students in a broad range of fields. Macintosh is available in all dealerships now. Based on the advanced, 32-bit architecture developed for Apple's Lisa computer, Macintosh combines extraordinary computing power with exceptional ease of use--in a unit that is smaller and lighter than most transportable computers. The suggested retail price for Macintosh is $2,495, which during the introductory period also includes a word-processing program and graphics package.

Macintosh, along with three powerful new Lisa 2 computers, forms the basis of the Apple 32 SuperMicro family of computers. All systems in the family run Macintosh software.

Like Apple's ground-breaking Lisa computer, Macintosh uses its built-in user-interface software and high-resolution display to simulate the actual desk-top working environment--complete with built-in notepads, file folders, a calculator and other office tools. Every Macintosh computer contains 64 kilobytes of read-only memory (ROM), built-in Lisa Technology and 128 kilobytes of random-access memory (RAM) that support these desk-top tools.

Users tell Macintosh what to do simply by moving a "mouse"--a small pointing device--to select among functions listed in menus and represented by pictorial symbols on the screen. Users are no longer forced to memorize the numerous and confusing keyboard commands of conventional computers. The result is radical ease of use and a significant reduction in learning time. In effect, the Macintosh is a desk-top appliance offering users increased utility and creativity with simplicity.

"We believe that Lisa Technology represents the future direction of all personal computers," said Steven P. Jobs, Chairman of the Board of Apple. "Macintosh makes this technology available for the first time to a broad audience--at a price and size unavailable from any other manufacturer. By virtue of the large amount of software written for them, the Apple II and the IBM PC became the personal-computer industry's first two standards. We expect Macintosh to become the third industry standard."


Here's a link to Apple's famous 1984 commercial that ran during the Super Bowl. Often discussed as one of the best commercials of all time, whatever that means. Definitely worth a look. That is the only time it ever ran (well, it did run late one night once in some small market just so it could qualify for an award, but let's not get too picky.) Supposedly the Apple board was seriously divided on whether to run it or not, even though they had already spent all the money for the Super Bowl spot. Jobs showed it to Wozniak who freaked out and offered to pay *half* the money out of his own pocket just so they could run it.

For the 20th anniversary the ad is also featured on Apple's site, exactly the same, except they have digitally inserted a different girl wearing an iPod. Very hard to see the differences.

For the even more obsessed widget : widget has released Magnum Opus, a set of 270 icons representing (supposedly) every Apple product from the Apple I to the iPod mini.

There are rumors of a 20th Anniversary Mac product to be released tomorrow. They did this already in 1996 for the 20th anniversary of Apple Computer (founded April 1, 1976) but who knows whether that makes this more or less likely.

Anyway, happy birthday Mac.
- jim 1-24-2004 11:41 pm [link] [1 ref] [add a comment]

We were talking last night about recording (from LP) onto a computer. Here are a couple links to what I was saying. If you don't care too much about quality, there is a cheap solution for the mac: Griffin's iMic ($40.) If you do care about sound, then the Tascam US122 is probably your best bet ($199.) Note that the Tascam also gives you 2 line outs, so it will make playing MP3s from your computer over your stereo sound much better than using the headphone jack.
- jim 1-23-2004 6:39 pm [link] [16 comments]

Guy with too much time, a car, and a Mac. Best mod evar?
- jim 1-23-2004 5:16 pm [link] [add a comment]

Okay, yeah, sure, Garageband is pretty fun. Like I need something else to keep me from getting anything done.

I'm not sure making it this easy for someone like me to make music is so great of an idea.
- jim 1-22-2004 9:23 pm [link] [1 comment]

Seems a little too soon to be true, but here's the first rumors about the next generation Treo 610. Higher resolution screen and bluetooth are the supposed improvements. How will I survive not having the latest model?
- jim 1-20-2004 7:40 pm [link] [2 comments]

This is silly, but I found this gizmodo typo to be rather funny:

No photos, but Sprint PCS Info has some details on the Samsung A700, which they think might be the first Sprint phone to allow video phone calling (the phone is capable of it, whether Sprint will disable that future or not isn't clear yet).
Damn that Sprint, always disabling our future!
- jim 1-19-2004 5:42 pm [link] [add a comment]

Billy Kulver, 76, "whose collaborations with artists helped give birth to the multimedia art forms of the 1960's" died on Sunday (NYTimes obit, free reg required.)

In 1966 Mr. Kluver teamed up with Robert Rauschenberg to solve the knotty engineering problems posed by 10 artists (Mr. Rauschenberg among them) who wanted to stage their art as spectacle. Mr. Kluver invited some 30 scientists and engineers, most of them his colleagues at Bell Labs, to realize dreamy ideas like snowflakes that fell upward and tennis rackets that gave out sounds like huge temple bells.

The outcome was "Nine Evenings: Theater and Engineering," a performance series that drew 14,000 visitors when it opened at the 69th Regiment Armory in Manhattan on Oct. 13, 1966, attracting worldwide attention and inaugurating a fusion of art and technology that prefigured the arrival of countless new art forms.

Experiments in Art and Technology — the organization devised in September 1966 by Mr. Rauschenberg, Mr. Kluver, the artist Bob Whitman and a Bell Labs engineer, Fred Waldhauer — quickly became an instrument of ongoing collaborations. E.A.T., as the organization is known, earned Mr. Kluver a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres from France and the Royal Order of Vasa from Sweden. Mr. Kluver continued to match up artists and scientists as recently as last summer.
Here's an IEEE special report on Mr. Kluver for more background on this interesting man.
- jim 1-14-2004 9:40 pm [link] [2 refs] [add a comment]

Hands on P900 review. If you don't need a keyboard, this is a phone/PDA/camera (mp3 player, video recorder...) mobile device to consider. Top of the line.
- jim 1-14-2004 6:28 pm [link] [add a comment]

Eastman Kodak Co. on Tuesday said it will stop selling traditional film cameras in the United States, Canada and Western Europe, another move by the troubled photography company to cut lines with declining appeal in favor of fast-growing digital products.

- jim 1-14-2004 6:20 pm [link] [3 comments]

Wow, this is interesting. The new version of Adobe Photoshop can detect images of currency, and will not allow those files to open. Here's the +5 slashdot discussion which includes a post explaining the tech which supposedly appeared in the Adobe support forums:

...The algorithm looks in the blue channel of a color image for little circles and most likely examines the distance distribution encountered. I have discovered a small constellation of just five circles (a bit like Orion with the belt starts merged) that will be rejected by a Xerox color photocopier installed next door from here as a banknote. Black on white circles do not work.

These little yellow, green or orange 1 mm large circles have been on European banknotes for many years. I found them on German marks, British pounds and the euro notes. In the US, they showed up only very recently on the new 20$ bill. On some notes like the euro, the circles are blatantly obvious, whereas on others the artists carefully integrated them into their design. On the 20 pound note, they appear as "notes" in an unlikely short music score, in the old German 50 mark note, they are neatly embedded into the background pattern, and in the new 20 dollar bill, they are used as the 0 of all the yellow 20 number printed across the note. The constellation are probably detected by the fact that the squares of the distances of the circles are integer multiples of the smallest one.

I have later been told that this scheme was invented by Omron and that the circle patter also encodes the issuing bank.

- jim 1-11-2004 7:17 pm [link] [1 comment]

Too cold for ice. That's right, all the restaurant ice machines stopped working last night. It was too cold. Apparently the thermostat systems go out of whack and never report the machines as being empty because, well, they are full of ice cold air I guess.

Spotted on the block was the Diamond Ice truck making stops at all the usual suspects. Not exactly the market cycle an industry outsider would predict.
- jim 1-11-2004 6:22 pm [link] [1 comment]

Audiovox releases the first 1 megapixel camera/phone for North America, the CDM-8910.
- jim 1-10-2004 6:08 pm [link] [1 ref] [3 comments]

P800 gets video recording capability.
- jim 1-06-2004 11:31 pm [link] [add a comment]

The Mac rumor world is unusually silent on this eve of MacWorld San Fransisco 2004. Maybe too quiet. Live stream of the keynote will be found here. 12:00 pm eastern time tomorrow.
- jim 1-05-2004 5:58 pm [link] [35 comments]

After many failed attempts NASA has a perfect landing on the red planet with their latest rover, Spirit.

NASA science chief Ed Weiler promised to stop calling Mars the "death planet."

- jim 1-04-2004 6:51 pm [link] [add a comment]

J. P. Barlow has an ah-ha moment with VoIP.
- jim 1-03-2004 8:03 pm [link] [add a comment]

Google 2003 year end zeitgeist.
- jim 1-03-2004 7:41 pm [link] [add a comment]

What percentage of computers connected to the internet are under the control of remote operators (crackers)? Last night during drunken conversation I was speculating it was over 70%. Of course I really have no idea, but it *could* be that high. Any guesses?
- jim 1-03-2004 7:38 pm [link] [3 comments]

Later this month at the Kent Gallery:

Paul LAFFOLEY
UN APERITIF DE L’ABSINTHE

(a brief display of new work)

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, January 22 thru January 26
In tandem with the Outsider Art Fair at the Puck Building, one block from the gallery.
Exhibition hours 10 to 6 daily FREE.
Evening Lecture Admission $10.

plus

A lecture on Various Themes
(accompanied by Paintings, Drawings, Slides, Readings and Video Verite)

PART I: Saturday Evening, January 24 from 7 to 9 p.m.
PART II: Sunday Evening, January 25 from 7 to 9 p.m.

Topics

Dimensionality, with a reading of Robert A. Heinlein’s (1907-1988) story “…and he built a crooked house” (1940) The story of a California architect that builds a Tesseracht House (a fourth dimensional (house).
The Principles of Geezer Art
The Earth-Moon Link up leading to physically alive architecture with video
The origin of my family name with slides
The current information on Time Travel
The History of Le Theâtre du Grand Guigol
The Zeppekolin or where I should be living right now
A working model of The Anthe Hieronymusbox Two. The three-dimensional version, combined with some palm reading, tarot reading for healing
The story of when Andy Warhol asked me to do some set up material and pictures for a Project on Hart Crane (1899-1932) and Brooklyn Bridge.
and other subjects to be announced

- jim 1-03-2004 5:58 pm [link] [2 refs] [add a comment]

I feel much more relaxed in an even numbered year.
- jim 1-02-2004 11:34 pm [link] [1 comment]

You can now click on pictures in my photolog and read or leave comments. I'd be interested if people have ideas about how they think such a page should work.
- jim 1-02-2004 10:03 pm [link] [3 comments]

older posts...